Instructor
Phillip Ellison
Joshua Reed-Diawuoh
Description
Overview
There is not one path to entrepreneurship. In this course, students learn and unlearn what it means to be an entrepreneur and the various paths one can take towards entrepreneurship. Whether starting in a traditional corporate job, joining a startup or monetizing your side hustle, students will learn from experts in the field how to leverage their experiences at Tufts and beyond to progress towards their ultimate goals. Students will engage in discussions and workshops to understand their narrative and envision their entrepreneurial future.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion, students will:
- Possess a working definition of entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, and intrapreneurship
- Understand what it means to embrace an entrepreneurial mindset
- Understand the basic principles behind entrepreneurship and the role of story telling in entrepreneurship
- Understand different types/paths of entrepreneurs e.g the corporate path, the social entrepreneur, the content creator, the intrapreneur, and entrepreneur through acquisition.
- Understand the concept of a “Portfolio Career”
- Understand the concept of “Specialist v.s. Generalist” and how that is evolving in the age of AI
- Explore emerging industries and learn about the skills that can help students to thrive in the Future of Work
- Be familiar with resources at Tufts that can help you further explore innovation and entrepreneurship
Course topics and objectives
- Learn how personal narratives can evolve over time and how you can strategically craft their story to reflect an entrepreneurial mindset
- Learn the value of the “nontraditional or nonlinear path” and “corporate path” and how you can extract value from each path to launch your own venture
- Learn when to launch your own venture
- Learn about the role of mental health and self reflection in the entrepreneurship process
- Understand powermapping and how to think strategically about championing your own idea within a company or organization
- Explore the concept of the “manager v.s. mobilizer”
- Develop a working definition of “social entrepreneur” and learn how to be entrepreneur for the public good
- Learn about the “modern entrepreneur”, their relationship to the creator economy, and how to leverage a go-to-community mindset
- Develop team collaboration through “Ridiculous Business Pitch” project
What people say
“The course has continuously helped me rethink what it means to be an Entrepeneur. Whether it is having an entrepreneurial spirit in another corporation or if it’s being a startup founder, the class has shown me the many different ways that entrepreneurial thinking can transform my life and profession..”
– An ENT090 Student
“I enjoyed hearing about entrepreneurship from two active entrepreneurs who are navigating what it is like to create products and launch companies – this honestly gave me a more realistic understanding of entrepreneurship which I did not quite have an understanding of before. I think my perception of entrepreneurship before taking this class was that it, well, seemed a little easier. You typically only hear about the big success stories, and not the grueling work it takes every day to build up to that point.”
– An ENT090 Student